


A Ride Home

by runrarebit



Series: Home [1]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alfie also speculates that Tommy may have impure intentions towards Arthur, Alfie decides to fuck over Tommy in a whole different way, Alfie doesn't exactly mind though, Angst, Arthur Shelby is pretty solidly gay in this, Consent Issues, Infidelity, Internalised Homophobia, M/M, Oral Sex, Period Typical Bigotry, Shelby family issues, Tommy Shelby is not always a good brother, but that's Alfie speculating, discussions of rape/non con, in relation to what Tatiana did to Arthur, no consent is negotiated before hand, pretty serious infidelity, suicidal Arthur Shelby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:34:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29725614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runrarebit/pseuds/runrarebit
Summary: After doing his part as Tommy's jeweller and being shown out the servants' entrance of Wilderness House, Alfie runs into a distressed and angry Arthur, who has decided to flee the orgy and drink alone in the dark instead...
Relationships: Arthur Shelby/Alfie Solomons
Series: Home [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2199471
Comments: 13
Kudos: 18





	A Ride Home

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: for period typical attitudes, anti-Semitism, homophobia, internalised homophobia, mentions of rape/non-con, Arthur getting suicidal again, Alfie speculating about Tommy having incestuous inclinations towards seeing Arthur getting humiliated- please let me know if I missed any.
> 
> My intentions: To take some time off writing fanfic, relax, try to write some original stuff, certainly not end up in a new fandom writing a rarepair.  
> My poor impulse control: Sounds great, excellent idea, really like that- but before we get to it, I'd just like to point out one thing. _Arthur Shelby._  
>  My intentions: No!  
> My poor impulse control: I see your point. May I just add, though, _Arthur Shelby with his wide, watering quivery eyes looking at Tommy for help while Alfie's got his hand on his thigh..._  
>  My intentions: ... I can see I'm not going to win this argument, am I?
> 
> Thank you to everyone who read the last Peaky Blinders fic I wrote, and for the comments and kudos! I didn't mean to write another one, but here we are again. Thank you to everyone who reads this one, and for any comments and kudos it gets! Stay safe out there!

They show him out the back door like some kind of servant, which he’d guess is them trying to give him a message. Fucking Russians. He might be more upset if he wasn’t plotting things, but he is plotting things, and thus the upset will have to wait.

Of course, even then it’s not _that_ upsetting. It’d be more upsetting if he hadn’t been able to see the looks on all their faces, seen the way he’d put the wind up them, seen their fear and uncertainty at the face of the big fucking Jew in their midst, proud and blatant and unashamed, talking down to them like the scum they are.

Blue blood means nothing when it’s running in the veins of a bunch of fucking degenerate pig fuckers like those.

He’s not even that sorry for what he’s plotting. Even though he’s pretty fucking sure Tommy won’t like a single fucking thought in his head right now—but fuck Thomas Shelby. He doesn’t get the man.

You know, he’d maybe actually feel a bit of guilt for the fucking audacious bit of backstabbing he’s about to do if the man hadn’t let him talk to Arthur like that. He probably shouldn’t have talked to Arthur like that. It was almost impossible not to talk to Arthur like that though— Yeah, a lot of it was about Tommy, testing the man and all, but a little bit— maybe more than a _little_ bit— was about Arthur himself.

He tells himself it’s because he doesn’t like it when men lie to themselves about what they are, but that’s not all of it either.

It’s the same fucking thing that led to him having goat blood in his moustache last time, those little Italian style kisses he’d laid on the other man’s cheeks coming a hell of a lot closer to _lips_ than he’d intended. There’s something about Arthur Shelby that gets to him, makes him want to be _cruel_.

Tommy shouldn’t have let him talk to Arthur like that. Tommy goes around acting like he’s a _family man_ — he’s fucking _not_.

The _Italians_ , now they’re _family men_ , down to the last goatfucking one of them. If he did to one of them what he did to Arthur— got one of them banged up for something they didn’t do, and almost _hanged_ — there’d be none of this forgive and forget, let’s get on with business _shit_. There’d be a proper fucking _vendetta_ — same, probably, if he talked to one of them the way he talked to Arthur.

Put his big fucking Jewish sodomite paw on one of their skinny little thighs— trembling, Arthur was trembling beneath his hand— and held them in place while he _humiliated_ them.

Yeah. There wouldn’t be a dark alley in London he could safely walk past if he did that to one of Sabini’s family.

Tommy let him though, Tommy _let_ him— not only that but he could see the way Arthur was looking at Tommy, pleading for help with his eyes, and he could sure as shit see the way Tommy looked back.

Tommy’s no family man.

It’s another fucking lie from the fucking Shelby family.

So, yeah. That egg was fucking _beautiful_ — and not just it, but half the fucking things in that room, and why the fuck should he care about Tommy fucking Shelby’s misplaced fucking trust in _him_ when he could be decking himself in jewels? And his mum.

Of course he’d _sell_ most of his cut, but a few of the things in there, that necklace with the fucking royal provenance— He’ll demand that. He’ll demand that and then he’ll take it home to dear old mum and drape it around her throat like it makes up, just a little, for the things they fucking did to her.

So, yes, he’d distracted— maybe distracted _plotting_ , but plotting’s a reasonable distraction, if not a noble one, which is why the bottle that comes whistling at his head from the dark in the shadow of the building almost fucking hits him.

‘What the fuck?!’ he squawks, dancing away from the shatter of glass and the splash of vodka. ‘What the—?’ he peers into the dark, where it comes from, and finds a little figure huddled in the shadowed nook between the house and one of the ugly scrabble of buildings back here at the shit part of the place, where none of the toffs ever go.

It takes him a moment to work out what he’s seeing, even with the light filtering out through all those windows, and in the end it’s the cadence of shaky breaths that helps him recognise the skinny little man hunched up on himself out of sight. ‘Arthur!’ he declares, mildly outraged. ‘I thought it was all forgive and forget, and now you’re throwing vodka at me!’

‘Go fuck yourself!’ is the hissing reply.

Well. Well now. Well indeed—

‘That’s not very nice,’ he declares, ‘What would Jesus think?’

The man makes a low, ragged kind of sound, and he honestly can’t tell if it’s laughter or something like a sob. So— He would guess that either Arthur’s more upset than he expected about their earlier interaction, or something else has happened.

_Does he care?_

Yeah, no, probably not— except he’s heard enough about Arthur Shelby to know that the man’s violent and unpredictable when roused, and he really doesn’t want Tommy’s plans getting interrupted to the degree that the contents of that treasure vault do not end up in any hands that might then pass some of them along to him.

‘Look, mate,’ he begins, approaching the man cautiously, ‘Knowing what kind of animal you are— You might want to retrieve whatever’s crawled up your arse and died, before you cause some kind of diplomatic incident,’ and then, when Arthur doesn’t respond, ‘I think we both know that’s not what Tommy wants.’

‘ _Fuck what Tommy fucking wants!_ ’ the man wails. ‘Who the fuck cares what Tommy fucking wants?! All my life doing what _Tommy_ fucking wants. Or _dad_. Or— And none of them give a _fuck_ about me. Never have. Fuck them. _Fuck them_!’

So, either Arthur’s holding a grudge for the way his brother just _watched_ while he metaphorically stripped him down and spread his legs— or something else really has happened. Pity he doesn’t get a chance to contemplate it more, as Arthur then launches out of his ungainly little crouch in the lee of two buildings and straight for his fucking throat.

He’s startled, Arthur’s drunk and uncoordinated— _upset_ he thinks, more than just the drink— and it has to be one of the least dignified squabbles he’s been in since before the war. It’s almost farcical. He could almost laugh— but then the man gets a lucky headbutt in and knocks both his hat and his kippah off, makes him drop his cane, and he kind of loses his temper a bit.

Getting his hands on Arthur’s throat and strangling him a bit against the stone wall of fucking _Wilderness House_ is probably something he should be doing even less than he should have spoken to the man like that earlier, but here we are.

For a moment Arthur’s got his own hands on _his_ face in return, scrabbling and clawing at him, scratching at the tender bits where his psoriasis has flared up something fierce in recent months— which also pisses him off— but then all of a sudden Arthur’s right hand is gone, is getting shoved down between them, and then he’s got Arthur Shelby’s hand cupping his cock.

 _He has Arthur Shelby’s hand on his cock_.

It stuns him absolutely stupid.

Reflexively he relaxes his chokehold on the man’s throat, the space between them suddenly filled with a mutter of sound, something like, ‘ _I can’t fucking do this anymore_ ,’ repeated again and again.

The hand stays on his cock.

For a split second he worried he’s about to face a particularly violent attempt at manual castration, but then the man is shoving at him— and he’s stupid enough to let the other go— and the next thing he knows it’s _his_ back against the stone wall, and that hand on his cock is joined by the other, pawing at him for a moment, before—

_Arthur Shelby drops to his knees in front of him._

He can’t see much, in the shade of the two buildings like they are, but he can sure as shit feel the hands scrabbling at his clothing, feel it when they manage to get his trousers undone, feel it when they cup his cock and draw it out into the cool night air. A second later and it’s no longer cold. A second later and it’s being drawn into a hot little mouth.

His hips thrust forward on their own, his hands clawing first at the stone of the wall, then one curling around the curve of the man’s skull, the other landing on a bony little shoulder. He feels the man choke, an apology slipping out that Arthur ignores, that narrow little head bobbing down again, trying to take him deeper, but choking again when the head of his cock bumps the back of the man’s throat.

At first there is a lot of ungainly movements, a lot of choking, a lot of ugly little guttural noises from crotch height, as well as the sensation of it— exciting in a strange way, aside from all the ways in which he does not want his cock vomited on if Arthur pushes it all too far— but then the man seems to fall into something like a rhythm, one of those long, slender hands coming up to wrap the base of his cock in knobbly fingers and stroke counterpoint to the movements of that mouth.

It starts to be good.

He can’t help wondering if the man’s done it before, but not for a long time, and is taking a bit to remember how— or if this is Arthur Shelby’s first blowjob and as the man’s warmed to it he’s discovering an unexpected talent.

The hand he has on the man’s face curls around the angles of it, fingertips brushing stubble and surprisingly soft skin, feeling the way the muscle of jaw stretched wide, the intrusion of his cock within—

Eager. The way the man is leaning into him, head bobbing. Eager.

Arthur is eager to get at his cock.

 _Fuck, this is really doing it for him_.

Arthur’s a little thing, really, thin all the way down to the bone. Breakable, probably.

 _Fuck_.

Suction too, the mouth around him more that just a warm wet space to be used. Arthur’s actually trying to suck the spunk out of him—

 _Fucking hell_.

He comes, _hard_ , body hunching over Arthur’s, other hand leaving that bony shoulder to cup the other side of the man’s face as he deposits his spunk in deep, coating the man’s tongue. Then it’s done and he collapses back against the wall, panting, staring up at the sliver of sky between the two roofs above them for a moment.

Arthur moves back, and a moment later he hears the sound of spitting. _Oh, well isn’t that a pity_. He’d rather have liked it if the other man swallowed.

The scrabble of movement continues, him turning his head from the heavens to see the other man crawling away from him on his knees, then lurching inelegantly to his feet. _Can’t have that, he hasn’t even gotten a hand on the other’s cock yet_.

He pushes away from the wall, chasing after the other and grabbing for him, pulling him back into the shadows between the two buildings. Arthur fights him at first, but not seriously, more swatting at him and pushing him away than landing any punches.

The man’s breaths are coming ragged, on the edge of a sob that he swallows with his own mouth as he gets the man back against the wall of the building and takes his lips in a kiss. That narrow, bitter little mouth tastes like his own spunk— an ugly taste, but one he’s always loved chasing in a lover’s mouth.

Arthur is frozen between him and the building for a moment— long enough he starts to think maybe he should let the man go unless he wants the fucker to try and bite his tongue off— before the man lets out a wounded noise and starts to kiss back.

 _This is nice_. This is fucking _lovely_ , isn’t it? Unexpected, but—

It’s easy to let his hands wander, touching those bony shoulders, slipping down under the man’s jacket to feel the way his body tapers to a narrow little waist. _Huh._ His waistcoat’s open, buttons missing from his shirt— he can just slip a few fingers in the gape of cloth there, stroke them across the spare flesh of the man’s belly, before allowing them to wander a little lower, palm cupping a cock he can feel pressing hard and urgent against the front of woollen trousers.

Arthur slaps his hand away, then pushes him back roughly. ‘No!’ the man snaps, a sliver of light shining off his eyes and revealing how wide they are. ‘No. I don’t want people who want to hurt me touching me, not right now. I don’t want to be touched. Keep your hands off me.’

Well. That says— _things_.

He removes his hands from the man, stepping back. ‘Did the Duke put his hands somewhere you didn’t want them, mate?’ he asks, conversational. He’s heard _things_. The old man looked like a degenerate— though he would prefer it if the man was, that the kind of degenerate the old bastard was wasn’t the same kind _he_ is.

Arthur doesn’t answer. Instead of saying anything the man just covers his face with his hands, standing slumped against the wall and— _Oh fuck. He’s **crying**_.

‘Shit, love, _what happened_?’ slips out, sounding more concerned than he’d like. ‘Is this something I should tell Tommy about? Do you need someone killed for something?’

‘ _Tommy_?’ gets choked out between almost silent sobs, ‘What the fuck does _Tommy_ care? Standing there, _looking_ at me while—’ a little wail of sound, thin and reedy and fucking _eerie_ , and then a repeat of, ‘I can’t fucking do this anymore—’ Arthur pushing away from the wall and stumbling away from him before the words are done.

This is a mess. Fuck. This is a _mess_. He suspects this is also a mess that won’t stay hidden if he lets Arthur wander out there and get found by anyone— and, yeah, he should just walk away, but the man did just _suck his cock_. You know, such things can make a man stupidly sentimental at times.

He goes after him again, catching him soft and gentle, ushering him sweetly back into their private little oasis in the darkness. This time Arthur doesn’t fight him. This time Arthur just sort of collapses against him, muttering ‘I can’t fucking do this anymore, I can’t fucking do this anymore,’ against the side of his neck.

‘What can’t you—?’ he manages, but the man’s suddenly interrupting him, which would be fucking _rude_ , if what he hears wasn’t so interesting.

‘Her fucking _hand_ on me cock and him just watching. What makes either of them think I want her fucking hand on me cock? It was just like with you, her hurting me, fucking _humiliating_ me, and he’s just fucking _watching_ —’ a shudder then, lithe, little body quivering in his arms. ‘I love me wife. I love _Linda_ , I _do_ — never did love a woman before her, but I love me wife— Still can’t— _can’t_ — not unless I imagine— How _fucked_ is that?— still _can’t_ , even with her, even though I love her, gotta imagine she’s someone else, gotta imagine she’s a— and then _her_ , that mad fucking _Duchess_ Tommy’s fucking, her with her fucking hand on me cock, and it was just like with you, just like with _you_ , so of course I— How _fucked_ is that? How fucked is it that I can get hard with _her_ fucking hand on me cock, because it felt like with _you_ , when all I can think is how much I _hated_ it, hated the way you made me feel— but I can’t with me own fucking _wife_ without imagining she’s—’

‘A man,’ he breathes out. Maybe even a man that is _himself_.

Probably not the right thing to say, as Arthur rears back and shoves him again, pushing at him and then stomping away with a snarl of ‘I fucking _hate you_ ,’ the moment the skinny man’s gotten loose.

 _Oh_. _Oh, this’s a thing to make him reconsider **everything**_.

Arthur Shelby is like him, a fucking _invert_. He bets Tommy doesn’t know. If Tommy knew the man would fucking _kill_ his brother.

Oh. Oh, oh, oh—

‘Where are you going, love?’ he calls after the man, scurrying to catch up and almost tripping over his fallen cane as he does. He ducks down, scoops the thing up, and goes rushing off after Arthur. ‘Love, slow down! Where are you going? I really think we should talk about this right now.’

What he really thinks is that he should get Arthur back in his arms, back in the shadow of the two buildings, and then see if he can get his hands down the man’s trousers for a bit— He always has been a bit funny about Arthur Shelby. Knowing the man’s a sodomite recontextualises that funniness in ways that could prove quite diverting.

 _Arthur might even have wanted him, once_ — Nah. Nah. No way has he fucked everything up. He can talk the man around.

Though, yeah, before he does get his hands in the man’s trousers he should probably get a bit of clarification about exactly what Tommy watched happen. It goes back to that _Tommy not being a family man_ thing, if _he_ had a brother and someone— not even just a _male_ someone, but even some _mad Russian bitch_ — put their hands on him like that, in what was clearly a sexual way, when he didn’t want it— Well. He’d fucking cut that fucking hand off, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t just _watch_.

 _Was it sexual for Tommy_? _Watching his brother get humiliated?_

Now _that_ is an interesting thought. Makes him wonder if watching Arthur quiver under his hand, pretty pale eyes all welling up and begging for help, might not have had a sexual element too. Not quite sure what he feels about that.

There’s the incest bit, which, _yeah_ — there’s also the _watching the two of them fuck would be kind of hot_ bit— but there’s also the _him being unwittingly used in some twisted fucking **sex game**_ bit— and he’s not all that keen on being played for a fool.

He’d bet if it _is_ a sex thing Arthur doesn’t even realise. Nah, he wouldn’t, would he? Not Arthur, begging his brother for help with his pretty eyes.

It’s kind of a bit _disgusting_ , if he thinks about it.

Mind you, if it is a sex thing Tommy might not even realise. Plenty of blokes don’t, if they go for both, and he can imagine the motivation to realise is probably greatly fucking _diminished_ if part of what they go for in the both is _watching people humiliate their older brother_.

‘I’m going home!’ Arthur roars, rounding the side of the building and stomping out onto the lawn. ‘I’m fucking going home. I’m going to go home, I’m going to fucking tell _Linda_ , then I’m gonna fucking hang meself, and do it properly this time.’ The man stops, sudden, the next words coming out hollow and full of a bitter kind of conviction, ‘I’m gonna be a dad. I’m gonna be a dad and I just can’t fucking do this anymore.’

He’s heard men speak like that before, heard that _tone_.

 _He means it_ — Well _fuck_.

 _All of a sudden the last thing he wants is for Arthur Shelby to die_.

‘Love, love,’ he coos as he comes to the man’s side, gently bracketing the man’s shoulders with his hands, trying to make eye contact. ‘How are you even going to get home, love? I bet Tommy has the keys to the car, doesn’t he?’

‘I’ll fucking _walk_ ,’ Arthur snaps, pulling away from him.

‘You’re not going to walk all the way back to Birmingham,’ he points out.

‘I’m a fucking _Gypsy_ , remember?’ Arthur snaps at him, ‘I can walk as much as I fucking like.’

‘How about I drive you home, yeah?’ he suggests, eying the man, realising he’s not even in his overcoat, just his thin suit jacket, unbuttoned waistcoat, and open shirt. Arthur’s shivering, quivering— and as much as he’d bet _upset_ makes up most of it, the man’s also got to be _cold_.

He shrugs off his own overcoat— remembering the sneer on the servant’s face as he’d handed it back to him, almost dropping it on the floor in the action, putting the _Jew_ back in his place— and drapes it over the other man’s shoulders. ‘Come with me, yeah? I’ve got a nice warm car. We can have a little chat on the drive home. Sort everything out— I realise now that I have probably misunderstood you, and I’m sorry for that. Sorry I’ve been a _cunt_. We can sort it out though, fix it all up nice and proper.’

‘What’s the _point_?’ the man huffs at him, glancing over with a strange resolution in pale eyes. _Well, fuck. He really does have the suicide highs now, doesn’t he? What a fucking cockup_. ‘I told you. _I can’t fucking do this anymore_. Tell Tommy _sorry_ , or tell him I’m a fucking coward, or don’t tell him anything at all, I don’t fucking care anymore and neither does he—’ the man turns to go again.

‘ ** _Home_** _doesn’t have to be Birmingham_ —’ he blurts out, desperate to stop this even if he’s not sure why. It’s not about Tommy. Not as far as he can tell. It’s about _Arthur_ — and maybe more things really have been about Arthur than he realised. ‘Home can be _London_. Come home with _me_ , love. I’ll keep you away from Tommy, if you don’t want to see him, and I’ll sure as shit keep you away from that Russian bitch. Come with me. A couple of weeks. Time to think. Work out what it is you really want—’

A pause, then, ‘Tommy needs me—’ and it comes out so fucking _broken_ , it would break his heart— if he had much of one left. Mainly it just makes him angry at the head of the Peaky Blinders.

‘ _Fuck Tommy_ , remember?’ he prompts. ‘If he doesn’t take care of you then he doesn’t deserve to have you, love. What I did to you— both times, but, yeah, _earlier_ — If he was any brother worth having, he would have fed me my own fucking cane. He would have broken my fucking teeth and cut out the tongue that spoke to you like that—’ he can see it strike true, and it’s only as he does that he realises what he’s doing. _He’s trying to take Arthur for himself_. Fuck the fucking _jewels_ , yeah, they’d be nice to have, but there’s another rare little gem that he could wander off with, and unlike diamonds and sapphires, there’s only _one_ Arthur Shelby.

Certainty comes over him, and with it his voice gets softer, sweeter, a seductive purr of silk, ‘And that Russian bitch— If you were _mine_ and she touched you in a way you didn’t want I’d have cut off her hand and given it to you as a gift, yeah? Made sure everyone knew that you were out of bounds, that fucking with _you_ was the same as fucking with _me_.’

‘I—’ Arthur stutters, ‘I— I don’t know—’

‘Come on love,’ he says, so gently, crowding the man with his body, feeling a deep well of satisfaction in how much _bigger_ he is. True, yeah, they’re about the same height, but Arthur’s so fucking _narrow_. _Delicate_ for all his vicious capacity for violence. ‘You’ll feel better after a sleep. Better when you’re away from the lot of those fucking mad bastards, _Tommy_ included. I’ll take you home, introduce you to me mum— and she’ll feed you up until you can’t even _remember_ what Tommy let people do to you. No need to hang yourself, yeah? It’d be a fucking _waste_.’

‘Why do you even fucking _care?_ ’ the man snarls at him, but he sees at the same time that Arthur’s clinging to his overcoat, and that feels a little like victory.

‘Because you, love, suck cock like a fucking _champion_ , and you’ve got a nice little body, and I admire your capacity to just do an _astonishing_ amount of violence when you have to—’ he can see absolutely nothing of what he’s saying is making a positive impact. ‘Look, the truth of it is that sometimes when a man gets his cock sucked— and you must have experienced this yourself, even if maybe underneath it all you weren’t all that interested in the person sucking your cock at the time— and the person who did the sucking sucked his cock _good,_ the man sometimes gets a bit _sentimental_. You know?’

Arthur gives him a _look_ , which is something better than the bleakness that was on the man’s face a moment ago. ‘You’ve decided you don’t hate me just because I sucked your cock?’

‘I’m not sure I ever hated you,’ he admits, ‘In fact I’ve got the embarrassing suspicion that maybe I always wanted to put my cock in some part of you—’ the _look_ intensifies, so he rushes to add, ‘But that does not excuse the fact I was a cunt. To _you_. I was a cunt to you, which I am sorry for— But, yes, in some ways you are right. While I don’t think I ever did hate you, the fact you sucked my cock, and did such a good job, is making me feel pretty bloody fond of you right this moment.’

Arthur frowns, head turning to the side as he stares off into nothing for a bit, obviously thinking. _If the answer’s **no** he could probably get away with knocking the man out, slinging him over his shoulder, and just abducting him, considering what he knows these fucking Russian toffs get up to_. ‘Fuck,’ the man eventually snaps. ‘London. Fuck. Ok, _yes_. Yes, take me to London. I think I’ll fucking _hit_ Tommy if I see him again anytime soon, especially after I then went and—’

Pale eyes dart to his face, then away, a blush suddenly suffusing freckly cheeks.

He places a hand low on the other man’s back, feeling him flinch at first, then relax into the contact, using it to gently propel him towards where he left his car and his driver— ‘Fuck!’ the man yelps, almost pulling away against, before he catches him, pulls him in close.

‘What’s the problem now, love?’ he better not be having second thoughts, or he really is going to knock him out and carry him off home like some kind of war prize.

‘If I just disappear Tommy’ll— I don’t even know what Tommy’ll do. Not _care_ , probably, except for how he’ll think the Russians did something to me, and he’ll take that as a challenge to the Peaky Blinders.’

‘Easily sorted, easily sorted,’ he says, mind racing. ‘Just you wait here for a moment.’

He keeps an eye on the man as he hurries around to the front door, pleased when Arthur does as he said, standing there draped in his overcoat— so big on him, dwarfing him, and isn’t that strangely _pleasing_ — Rapping on the door with his cane he waits for a servant to open it, the old man staring at him with momentarily unconcealed disgust. ‘You know the bloke from Birmingham that came here earlier? The one in charge? Tommy Shelby?’ he asks.

The servant wrinkles up his nose, but eventually nods. _Insolent little shit_.

‘Well, you go find him,’ he tells the pompous little man, ‘And you tell him that if he’s looking for his brother, his _Jeweller_ has driven him home. Ok? You understand what I’m saying?’ _No need to specify **whose** home_. Let Tommy worry about it when he’s back in Birmingham and Arthur’s nowhere to be found. A fright will probably do the man some good.

He sees the servant’s eyes flick from him out to the lawn, where Arthur is still waiting, an ugly little expression briefly coming over the man’s wrinkled face, before a nod. ‘Understood.’

With that he turns to go, making his way back to Arthur with spritely steps, wrapping his arm around the man’s waist the moment he’s in reach and tugging him along towards the car. _Well, the future sure is looking interesting now, isn’t it?_


End file.
